Entourage creator Doug Ellin spent part of his Valentine's Day weekend (14-15Feb15) stranded in the California desert with his new fiancee after a tyre on his car burst. The TV writer/producer treated his bride-to-be, Madeleine Diehl, to a romantic retreat at the Madison Club near Palm Springs, California, but the couple's journey back to Los Angeles on Sunday (15Feb15) turned into a disaster as Ellin had to pull his Mercedes-Benz over in the middle of the desert.
Without a spare tyre to hand and representatives at Ellin's roadside assistance firm AAA only willing to tow him seven miles (11.26 kilometres), the writer decided to turn to Instagram.com to moan about his bad luck.
Sharing a photo of his flat tyre against the backdrop of the desert, he wrote, "You can see the windmill what you can't see is that there is no spare tire in this car. Ahhhhh helpppppp!!! 120 miles from home no service stations open. AAA will only tow me seven miles. To what??? In and out burger (fast food chain)???"
His desperate post caught the attention of Rambo producer Randall Emmett, who also happened to be driving back to Los Angeles from Palm Springs, and he came to Ellin's rescue.
Shortly after his initial post, Ellin returned to Instagram and shared a snap of himself with Emmett, standing beside the producer's Rolls-Royce. He captioned the snap, "I now know why instagram is worth a billion dollars. Twenty minutes of a post and I get the mogul in a Rolls to drive me home."
Ellin's car is still stuck in the desert, waiting to be towed, but Emmett tells TMZ.com, "We were all in shock that the timing worked out and we were mostly blown away by the power of social media. We couldn’t believe it."

The long-delayed Tupac Shakur biopic is slated to begin filming in June (15). The film about the late rapper was initially scheduled to start production in 2011, but it was delayed due to a lengthy legal battle between production company Morgan Creek and the star's mother Afeni Shakur.
The dispute has since been settled and the film's producer Randall Emmett has now revealed filming is slated to begin in the summer (15).
He tells Collider.com, "The script is great and we're ready to make the movie. We're just prepping the logistics."
Poetic Justice director John Singleton, who was a friend of the late rapper, is slated to take charge of the biopic.

Lindsay Lohan made an unexpected trip to the Sundance Film Festival on Monday (20Jan14) to announce her next movie. It was the embattled actress' first trip to the festival in Park City, Utah. She was joined by producer Randall Emmett as she revealed her next film project would be a psychological thriller titled Inconceivable, which will start shooting in March (14).
Lohan is the only actress attached to the film at this stage, but she has high hopes of landing a really big star, adding she would love to work with Jessica Lange.
The actress is currently shooting her upcoming docu-series for Oprah Winfrey's OWN network.

Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are set to team up again for a 2 Guns sequel, if producer Randall Randall Emmett gets his way. The filmmaker has revealed he will start working on the follow-up to the hit 2013 film in the new year, but admits the project is not yet set in stone.
He tells Collider.com, "I think we're having that conversation. I don't wanna be so bold to say, you know, it's 100 per cent. Of course it comes down to Denzel and Mark and the director, Baltasar (Kormakur), who have to make that decision. We, of course, would love to do a sequel and we are pushing for a sequel.
"I think we have to find the right story..., but I think that we'll probably push forward with a script soon and then hopefully, if the creative powers that be fall in love with the storyline, then we would start to have that conversation."
In 2 Guns Washington and Wahlberg played two law enforcement officers who reluctantly team up to take down a drug cartel.

Lions Gate via Everett Collection
When we last left our heroes, they had conquered all opponents in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, returned home to their newly refurbished living quarters in District 12, and fallen haplessly to the cannibalism of PTSD. And now we're back! Hitching our wagons once again to laconic Katniss Everdeen and her sweet-natured, just-for-the-camera boyfriend Peeta Mellark as they gear up for a second go at the Capitol's killing fields.
But hold your horses — there's a good hour and a half before we step back into the arena. However, the time spent with Katniss and Peeta before the announcement that they'll be competing again for the ceremonial Quarter Quell does not drag. In fact, it's got some of the film franchise's most interesting commentary about celebrity, reality television, and the media so far, well outweighing the merit of The Hunger Games' satire on the subject matter by having Katniss struggle with her responsibilities as Panem's idol. Does she abide by the command of status quo, delighting in the public's applause for her and keeping them complacently saturated with her smiles and curtsies? Or does Katniss hold three fingers high in opposition to the machine into which she has been thrown? It's a quarrel that the real Jennifer Lawrence would handle with a castigation of the media and a joke about sandwiches, or something... but her stakes are, admittedly, much lower. Harvey Weinstein isn't threatening to kill her secret boyfriend.
Through this chapter, Katniss also grapples with a more personal warfare: her devotion to Gale (despite her inability to commit to the idea of love) and her family, her complicated, moralistic affection for Peeta, her remorse over losing Rue, and her agonizing desire to flee the eye of the public and the Capitol. Oftentimes, Katniss' depression and guilty conscience transcends the bounds of sappy. Her soap opera scenes with a soot-covered Gale really push the limits, saved if only by the undeniable grace and charisma of star Lawrence at every step along the way of this film. So it's sappy, but never too sappy.
In fact, Catching Fire is a masterpiece of pushing limits as far as they'll extend before the point of diminishing returns. Director Francis Lawrence maintains an ambiance that lends to emotional investment but never imposes too much realism as to drip into territories of grit. All of Catching Fire lives in a dreamlike state, a stark contrast to Hunger Games' guttural, grimacing quality that robbed it of the life force Suzanne Collins pumped into her first novel.
Once we get to the thunderdome, our engines are effectively revved for the "fun part." Katniss, Peeta, and their array of allies and enemies traverse a nightmare course that seems perfectly suited for a videogame spin-off. At this point, we've spent just enough time with the secondary characters to grow a bit fond of them — deliberately obnoxious Finnick, jarringly provocative Johanna, offbeat geeks Beedee and Wiress — but not quite enough to dissolve the mystery surrounding any of them or their true intentions (which become more and more enigmatic as the film progresses). We only need adhere to Katniss and Peeta once tossed in the pit of doom that is the 75th Hunger Games arena, but finding real characters in the other tributes makes for a far more fun round of extreme manhunt.
But Catching Fire doesn't vie for anything particularly grand. It entertains and engages, having fun with and anchoring weight to its characters and circumstances, but stays within the expected confines of what a Hunger Games movie can be. It's a good one, but without shooting for succinctly interesting or surprising work with Katniss and her relationships or taking a stab at anything but the obvious in terms of sending up the militant tyrannical autocracy, it never even closes in on the possibility of being a great one.
3.5/5
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Film producers Randall Emmett and George Furla are facing legal action from a professional poker player after they cut his part in an upcoming movie to just one line. Aspiring actor Dan Bilzerian paid the producers $1 million (£645,000) in exchange for a role in Lone Survivor, starring Mark Wahlberg and Emile Hirsch.
Bilzerian insists Emmett and Furla agreed he could play the role of Chief Healy and he is now suing the pair after they cut his lines, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday (28Aug13).
The complaint reveals Bilzerian had allegedly arranged to appear in the film for at least eight minutes with 80 words of dialogue but ended up with just one line and one minute of screen time.
He is demanding damages of more than $1.2 million (£773,901).
Lone Survivor is due for release later this year (13).

Despite boasting a couple of headliners who, at one point, might have sported enough gravitas as to pull the masses in to see any feature film, 2 Guns doesn't have a whole lot of draw. The well-worn buddy cop trope gets an interesting makeover with both parties playing undercover agents for independent organizations (Denzel Washington works for the DEA, while Mark Wahlberg is a Naval officer) unaware of the other's affiliation. Throughout, both parties manage performances that invite laughter, with Wahlberg's hybrid of badass and nebbish earning particular favor. But for some reason, the film just can't seem to muster up a full dish of appeal.
Maybe it's because 2 Guns seems to be, and proves to be, a film that sets the bulk of its attention on forwarding the criminal plotline. In this area, 2 Guns offers little in the new. Yes, the dramatic irony that both Washington and Wahlberg are officers of the law, and each under the impression that the other is a bona fide crook, is a twist with some flavor. But too heavily stocked with your standard cop movie tropes — inhabited by drug cartel baddie Edward James Olmos and sociopathic CIA man Bill Paxton — the film crumbles under its decision to take its story too seriously.
When it has fun, though, it has a good deal of it.
The high points of the film are not when Washington and Wahlberg are facing off with their laundry list of enemies — criminals, fellow lawmen, former allies, you name it... nobody likes these guys — but when the mismatched pair tustle verbally with one another.
Washington's Bobby Trench is a smooth, serious, acerbic would-be loner; Wahlberg's blathering Michael Stigman operates at peak energy and volume, wearing his lust for attention and friendship on his sleeve as he works tirelessly to win over his target/partner. Their chemistry, while nothing unprecedented in the buddy cop genre, is endearing, helping to pass the hour-and-a-half occupied by 2 Guns with just enough chuckles.
So if you're already there, having wandered accidentally into the wrong theater or affixed against your will to a diehard Denzel fan's idea of a perfect night out, buck up — the comedic scenes will get you through it. But if you're on the fence, they're not quite worth heading out to the theater for.
Follow Michael Arbeiter on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter | Follow hollywood.com on Twitter @hollywood_com
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Former All My Children star Ambyr Childers is expecting her second child with movie producer husband Randall Emmett. The actress, who also appeared in The Master and Gangster Squad and who currently plays Liev Schreiber's wife in TV drama Ray Donovan, is pregnant and due to give birth in November (13).
Childers showed off her baby bump at the Los Angeles premiere of Ray Donovan last month (Jun13) and told UsMagazine.com, "I'm letting it all hang out!"
And she has already begun indulging in her pregnancy cravings, adding, "I had two pieces of pizza before I got here. I'm craving candy so I literally went to CVS (convenience store and pharmacy) and bought basically the whole aisle of candy."
Childers and Emmett already share a three-year-old daughter, called London.

If there's a cinematic alchemy award to be given this year director Bill Condon deserves to take it home after magically turning the tedious Twilight franchise into entertainment gold. 2011's Part 1 was a horror camp romp that turned the supernatural love triangle — the naval gazing trio of Bella Edward and Jacob — on its head. Breaking Dawn - Part 2 continues the madcap exploration of a world populated by vampires and werewolves mining even more comedy thrills and genuine character moments out of conceit than ever before. The film occasionally sidesteps back into Edward and Bella's meandering romance (an evident hurdle of author Stephenie Meyer's source material) but the duller moments are overshadowed by the movie's nimble pace and playful attitude. Breaking Dawn - Part 2 will elicit laughs aplenty — but thankfully they're all on purpose.
Part 2 picks up immediately following the events of the first film Bella (Kristen Stewart) having been turned into a vampire by Edward (Robert Pattinson) to save her life after the torturous delivery of her half-human half-vampire child Renesmee. She awakes to discover super senses heightened agility increased strength… and a thirst for blood. One dead cougar later Bella and the gang are able to focus on the real troubles ahead: Renesmee is rapidly growing (think Jack) and vampiric overlords The Volturi perceive her a threat to vampiric secrecy. Knowing the Volturi will travel to Forks WA to kill the young girl (a 10-year-old just a month after being born) The Cullens amass an army of bloodsucking friends to end the oppression once and for all.
Packed with an absurd amount of backstory and mythology-twisting plot points (some vampires can shoot lightning now?) Condon and series screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg mine revel in the beefed up ensemble of Breaking Dawn - Part 2 and thanks to a wildly funny cast it never feels like pointless deviation. Along with the usual suspects Lee Pace adds swagger to the series as a grungy alt-rock vampire Noel Fisher appears as a hilarious over-the-top battle-ready Russian coven member and Michael Sheen returns has Volturi head honcho Aro and steels the show. Flamboyant diabolical and a steady stream of maniacal laughter Sheen owns Condon's high camp vision for Twilight and he lights up the screen. There are a few throw away nations of vampires — the oddly stereotypical Egyptian and Amazonians sects are there mostly there to off-set the extreme whiteness — but the actors involved bring liveliness to a franchise known for being soulless. Even Stewart Pattinson and Taylor Lautner give personal bests in this installment — a scene between Bella and her dad Charlie (Billy Burke) is genuinely heartfelt while Jacob's overprotective hero schtick finally lands.
Whereas Breaking Dawn - Part 1 stuck mostly to the personal story relying on the intimate moments as Bella and Edward took the big plunge into marriage and sex Part 2 paints with broader strokes and Condon has a ball. Delving into the history of the vampires and the vampire world outside Forks is Pandora's Box for the director. One scene where we learn why kids scare the heck of the Volturi captures a scope of medieval epics — along with the bloodshed. Twilight might be known for its sexual moments but Breaking Dawn - Part 2 will go down for its abundance of decapitations. The big set piece in the finale is something to behold both in the craftsmanship of the spectacle and in its bizarre nature.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 had the audience hooting hollering and even gasping as it twisted and turned to the final moments. There's little doubt that even the biggest naysayer of the franchise would do the same. No irony here: the conclusion of Twilight is a blast.

As with seemingly every other tentpole release to hit the multiplex this summer the action thriller Cowboys &amp; Aliens is based on a comic book – albeit a lesser-known one. It’s directed by Jon Favreau whose previous comic-book adaptations Iron Man and Iron Man 2 proved how much better those films can be when they’re grounded in character. Unfortunately his latest effort is grounded not in character but a hook an alt-history scenario best expressed in the language of the average twelve-year-old: “Like wouldn’t it be awesome if like a bunch of 1870s cowboys had to fight a bunch of crazy aliens with exoskeletons and spaceships and super-advanced weapons?”
Like perhaps. The hook was compelling enough to get someone to pony up a reported $160 million to find out and the result is a film in which the western and science-fiction genres don’t so much blend as violently collide. After the wreckage is cleared both emerge worse for wear.
Daniel Craig stars as Jake Lonergan a stranger who awakens in the New Mexico Territory with a case of amnesia a wound in his side and a strange contraption strapped to his wrist. After dispatching a trio of bandits with Bourne-like efficiency he rides to the nearby town of Absolution where he stumbles on what appears to be an elaborate Western Iconography exhibit presented by the local historical preservation society. There’s the well-meaning town Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) struggling to enforce order amidst lawlessness; the greedy rancher Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) who really runs things; his debaucherous cowardly son Percy (Paul Dano); the timid saloonkeeper Doc (Sam Rockwell) who’s going to stand up for himself one of these days; the humble preacher Meacham (Clancy Brown) dispensing homespun spiritual advice; et al.
Jake of course has his own part to play – the fugitive train-robber – as we discover when his face shows up on a wanted poster and a sneering Dolarhyde fingers him for the theft of his gold. The only character who doesn’t quite conform to type is Ella (Olivia Wilde) who as neither a prostitute nor some man’s wife – the traditional female occupations in westerns – immediately arouses suspicion.
Jake is arrested and ordered to stand trial in Federal court but before he can be shipped off a squadron of alien planes appears in the sky besieging Absolution and making off with several of its terrified citizenry. In the course of the melee Jake’s wrist contraption wherever it came from reveals itself to be quite useful in defense against the alien invaders. Thrown by circumstances into an uneasy alliance with Dolarhyde he helps organize a posse to counter the otherworldly threat – and bring back the abductees if possible.
Cowboys &amp; Aliens has many of the ingredients of a solid summer blockbuster but none in sufficient amounts to rate in a summer season crowded with bigger-budget (and better-crafted) spectacle. For a film with five credited screenwriters Cowboys &amp; Aliens’ script is sorely lacking for verve or imagination. And what happened to the Favreau of Iron Man? The playful cheekiness that made those films so much fun is all but absent in this film which takes itself much more seriously than any film called Cowboys &amp; Aliens has a right to. Dude you’ve got men on horses with six-shooters battling laser-powered alien crab people. Lighten up.
Craig certainly looks the part of the western anti-hero – his only rival in the area of rugged handsomeness is Viggo Mortensen – but his character is reduced to little more than an angry glare. And Wilde the poor girl is burdened with loads of clunky exposition. The two show promising glimpses of a romantic spark but their relationship remains woefully underdeveloped. Faring far better is Ford who gets not only the bulk of the film’s choicest lines but also its only touching subplot in which his character’s adopted Indian son played by Adam Beach quietly coaxes the humanity out of the grizzled old man.